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Do you ever watch any Bad Robot productions on TV? Haha when I was typing my title I thought of it and the way they say it, so that's why the A is capitalized in my title. Ok, so that was very random, but there you have it.

So I'm here to tell you that I'm a bad blogger, as if you didn't know that already...

But I do finally have a computer once again, but...

Yes, there's another but.

I am just warning you that posts may be few and far between here for the next couple months or so, as we are planning a very major change in our little family's life.

As of now, we are planning on moving a little further south (from OH to NC), so packing up and moving and selling a house and buying a house, you can imagine the chaos that will ensue, since this is rather an abrupt happening...

Not that it hasn't been prayed about, hoped for, prayed about, talked about, prayed about, you get the idea, for 2 years, it's just that when God says go, you'd better go. Right?

Ok God, we're gonna go.

Stay with me...

I am computerless... so I don't know when my next real post will be:( But hang in there I will be back! Sometime.

Spicy Cheese Biscuits

These biscuits were next in the book. They were quite yummy. Of course I made a few substitutions... do I ever follow a recipe exactly???? Yes, sometimes if I happen to have all the right ingredients on hand:)

Here is the recipe:

Spicy cheese biscuits (for 10 biscuits)

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon sweet smoked paprika
6 tablespoons cold butter, cut in pieces
6 ounces manchego cheese, finely grated
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Whisk the flour, baking powder and soda, salt, sugar, and paprika in a large bowl. Cut in the butter until it resembles coarse meal with a few clumps remaining. Stir in the cheese.

Add the cream, and stir with a rubber spatula until it just comes together. Use a 1/2-cup measure to scoop mounds about 1 1/2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Dust with more paprika. Bake 15 to 20 minutes, rotating halfway through.

So my substitutions are: I used regular paprika, I haven't been able to find smoked in my little town... And I used parmesean cheese instead of manchego, don't think my grocery budget could handle fancy cheese like that:) Oh, and I made the biscuits about half the size that the recipe asks for, I don't have a scoop that big.
 
Even with the substitutions, they were really yummy.
 

I ended up with 16 biscuits instead of 10 and only 12 would fit on my tray so instead of baking all of them and throwing half away because we couldn't eat them fast enough, I froze the 4 biscuit dough balls that were left. I simply froze them on the tray and when they were hardened I put them in a freezer bag, when I was ready to bake them I just put them on the tray, still frozen, and baked as directed, they turned out perfectly! I did the same thing with the Cream Cheese and Chive Biscuits that I blogged about earlier and they turned out awesome too.

 
I'm really enjoying trying all these new baking recipes, hope you all are enjoying the posts too:)

Homemade Baby Wipes

I know this isn't a new concept but I thought I'd share my "recipe" with you all.

I started doing this out of sheer desperation for my very newborn little boy who had an extremely sensitive tushy for the first several months of his life. Anything I used was a disaster because he broke out with very painful diaper rash, so bad the poor little guy had sores:( So when I realized that store bought wipes were part of the problem I went looking for a solution and found out about homemade wipes, a lifesaver for this new mama. Since I could use whatever I wanted for the solution I figured for sure I had to give this a try. Now after 6 months he no longer needs such major sensitive skin products (although he is still quite prone to it), I use them because they are so cheap compared to store bought wipes! I like them better too, they clean up, well you know, much better!!:)

Ok so here's my recipe, this is a bit different from all the rest that I've found since I tweaked it to fit my needs, but it works great and I've kept using the same mixture ever since the beginning.

1 1/4 cups hot water
3/4 tbl baby oil
3/4 tbl baby wash

That's it. That's all there is to it. So simple and easy-peasy. I put in much less oil and wash than what the other recipes that I found called for because I wanted something very mild and also I discovered that if I put in more soap the wipes got really sudsy, and I didn't really like that. And also if I used more water by the time I got to the end of the roll I was wringing out the wipes and I wasn't crazy about that either.

Here is a little pic tutorial for ya:)

Start with a roll of plain regular good quality paper towels (I use Bounty), not double roll, or select-a-size, just plain ol' regular paper towels. Cut in half. An electric knife works best for this (or your hubby's "cleaned up" circular saw;)!), trying to saw through with a regular knife is a bit tough.

Next you'll need a tight closing plastic container. This locking Sterilite container I found a wally-world works super for this.

Any kind of baby wash and baby oil. This is what I use.

Now put your water, baby oil and baby wash in your container. Swish around to create bubbles:)

Now put one half of your paper towel roll in the container, cut side down.

Put on the lid and let it sit for about 10 min or until all of the water is absorbed into the bottom of the roll.

After the water is absorbed into the roll, turn the container upside down so the water can saturate both ends of the roll.

After about an hour or so, your wipes will be ready. Now pull the cardboard center of the roll out. The cardboard needs to be well saturated or it will just tear and not come out.

And now pull the towels out from the center and tear off one by one as needed. Now you have wipes!!

Hope someone can use this little tip, I love them and will never go back to store bought wipes:)

*I do use store bought wipes in my diaper bag sometimes, although these can be torn off and folded and taken along just like any other ones.

6 month "birthday"

Have you ever wondered why babies don't get to have fun and dive into a gooey messy birthday cake before they're a year old???

I have.

I just think that as grabby and curious that they are they should be allowed to explore and feel the gooey texture:)

And these thoughts are what brought this on:

I actually had plans to make a cute cupcake and have Evan dive into it on his 6 month "birthday". Well that didn't work out soo... last night my family came over to celebrate my brother's birthday, very belated, his birthday was on the 11th and Evan's 6 month birthday was on the 22nd. So I thought, well if we can celebrate a real birthday 17 days late we can celebrate a 6 month birthday 6 days late. Right? Well, right. :) Thanks for sharing your b-day cake Josh:)

Enjoy the pics, we all sure enjoyed watching him and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it too:)

Just in the last week or so Evan has started eating stuff like graham cracker pieces, Cheerios, etc. And ever since he has been more than mildly curious about the food we eat so he absolutely loved this! Even before we gave him his piece my mom was setting the cake on the table and passed by a little too close to Evan and he grabbed at the cake and got a glob of frosting:)

I can't wait now to see how he'll react at a year old to the prospect of diving into a cake, will he go all out again, or will it be too yucky??
Kids are so fun!:)

P.S. Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure this will be a tradition for any more kids that might come along in our little family:)

A little more comfort

for my little man.

To start I pulled out my handy-dandy sewing machine.

Can I just tell you this was THE deal of 2009. Well, actually I did score quite a few deals but this one is pretty awesome!! I got a sewing machine soon after we were married for those little projects that needed to be done here and there but was never happy with it. I just thought I hated sewing. That was that. My mom has had a Sears Kenmore sewing machine for as long as I can remember. Probably as long as I've been alive:) And it still sews like a dream to this day (after MUCH MUCH use).

So when I saw this beauty at a garage sale last summer for $10 I knew I had stumbled upon something great. And to make it even better the lady who was selling it said she used it ONCE and has had it in storage ever since. So people this machine was BRAND NEW!

Yeah yeah it's older than me, well it's actually older than James who is 7 years older than me:) But these machines have a reputation for lasting forever, and this one has not let me down! The first thing I made with it was curtains for Evan's room and I was so impressed. I actually enjoyed sewing for the first time in my life! So having a good machine really does make a difference:)

Well on to what I pulled the machine out for yesterday... Poor little Evan did not enjoy his pack and play for sleeping very much. Can't say that I can blame him after feeling how hard the mat was on the bottom!! So I decided to add a little bit more padding for the little guy.

I used a piece of foam core from Joann's and found this cute flannel fabric to make a cover for it.

I haven't done button holes yet, (they scare me) so I made it like a pillow sham so it can be removed and washed, because well, after my spitty uppy baby sleeps on it it's gonna need it!:) I was trying to figure out how I was gonna do this simply and James suggested the pillow sham idea. Brilliant! And simple. I'm all about simple, quick, functional and attractive:)

While at Joann's wandering through the fabrics I was thinking that the play-pen had monkey graphics on it. Hmm, my brain cells must have decreased, you know having a baby and all, because there are no monkeys. Only giraffes, hippos & elephants. Oh well, the monkeys are cute too:)

And here is my comfy little monkey:) No more hard uncomfortable base to sleep on, just a soft comfy "mattress".

More baking!!! (Part 2)

Part 2 will be about my Valentine's Day cookies. I'm not much of a Valentine's Day fan, especially not decorating my house and such for the occasion. This may change as my kids grow up:) But for now I'm happy not going to any bother for it. I'm happy if I receive a card from my honey, if there's flowers, not even neccesarily roses, I'm really happy:)

But if there's an excuse to make my favorite cut-out cookies then I'm all for it. And Valentine's Day calls for pretty pink heart shaped cookies:)

Now it just so happened that the cookies from this post are now all gone in our tummys and it was time to bake again, otherwise Valentine's Day cookies may have been skipped this year. *gasp* But instead of going with the next cookie recipe in line from this book I chose an old faithful from it. It is my absolute favorite cut-out recipe I have ever found. The dough is such a dream to work with and they have a wonderful buttery taste!! And they always turn out looking so nice. Here is a link to the recipe.

See how nice and smooth this dough is?? So not like my biscuits from earlier in the day, I'm glad I did those first and had this to look forward to:)

And the finished product...

They really are as good as they look:)